Lilac in Winter

Chapter One

LILAC

16 years, 11 months, 3 weeks, 0 days

My name is Lilac Sophia Carpenter, and I’m sixteen years old.

I’m going to be sixteen years old for the rest of my life.

Chapter Two

LILAC

16 years, 4 months

I’m fourteen today. Yesterday I was forty-three. Maybe tomorrow I’ll want to be nine. I never know what the wish might be from one day to the next.

But I decide I’m fourteen today because it sounds like a good age, a reasonable age. At least when you’re taken to the hospital for the first time when you’re fourteen, you’re young enough to believe they can actually save you and innocent enough to think you have a whole lifetime left.

And besides. Imagining I’m fourteen today isn’t so far off from the truth.

When I wake up this time, there’s someone new in the room. I can sense him there before I open my eyes, hear the subtle crack of his joints when he shifts his weight, the scratch of his pen when he scrawls his name. I imagine him standing in the doorway in a long white lab coat and pale blue scrubs, sneakers on his feet. Maybe he’s young and in his first-year residency. Maybe he’s old and calculating the days until retirement. Maybe he’s somewhere in between.

I can picture where he’s standing. After two years and dozens of visits, I know every square-inch of this room by now. I know the tan speckled tile that lays beneath my bed, know the faded yellow walls that hold up a dry-erase board with my name and date of birth and a nurse’s unfortunate drawing of Winnie-the-Pooh. I know the scrape of dried leaves collecting in the hollow outside my window, the rattle of the dinner cart and the one wheel that always seems to stick. I know this symphony of sound: intercoms and whispers and prayers. I know how to listen. I’ve learned how to forget.

I know everyone who walks in and out of here.

I don’t know him.

It’s daylight out, the middle of spring. I know the curtains are pulled open because I can feel the warmth of the sunlight on my face. In a few hours, when the sun rises higher and the fever sets in, they’ll draw the shades and place damp washcloths on my forehead to help keep me cool, but now it’s pleasant, like the stray heat from a recently turned-off stove.

I blink a few times to scatter the lingering dreams and focus on him. He’s where I thought he would be—standing in the open doorway, flipping through the pages of my chart. But instead of a lab coat and scrubs, he’s wearing black pants and a light blue dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up casually to the elbows. There’s a pair of thick-framed glasses in one hand, and he frowns and squints at the pages before exhaling a small sigh.

I know the words he’s read.

I stretch my legs and readjust my head against the pillows, finding a cool place to rest my cheek. He looks up, and when he sees I’m awake, he tucks the chart beneath his arm and puts on his glasses and smiles. I decide I like his smile. It reaches his dark eyes, makes them light up, and that light is contagious. I want to smile back, but it’s too soon.

I may know him now, but he still doesn’t know me.

Didn’t wake you, did I? His voice is rich and deep in a way that seems to match his age. He crosses the few steps towards my bed, lays the chart on the blankets by my feet, and checks the IV bag hanging above me.

I point to the empty chocolate pudding cup on the bedside table. Would you give me more of the good stuff if I say yes?

His smile widens. They said you had a sense of humor.

Yeah, well… I force myself to sit up and glance at the empty chair beside my bed. Where’s my mom?

Out in the hallway on a phone call. I’m sure she’ll be right in.

And my dad?

Afraid I haven’t seen him.

No, of course not. That was two years ago when he was still trying to be a father, not today. He wouldn’t be here today, not if he can help it.

My name’s Dr. Wilhems, the man introduces himself. I’m the consulting physician here. I’ll be checking in on you every once in a while, if that’s okay with you. He picks up the chart again and flips through the pages. Can you give me your name and date of birth, sweetheart?

Outside, a cloud eclipses the sun, casting shadows across the room. I frown and glance at the dry-erase board where my birthdate is written in black marker next to a too-thin, honey-loving bear.

I don’t like the way he calls me sweetheart. There’s something minimizing, juvenile about it. Then I remember I’m fourteen today—that the date on the dry-erase board is wrong—and I shake my head.

Come back later, I say. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll know for sure then.

Chapter Three

If I had to look back and pick a point where my life really began, I’d say it was the day I met Nathan Emery. It’s like the years before him don’t exist anymore because now I can’t imagine my life without him. From the time we were kids and he moved in next door, we’ve met at every crossroad, converged at every fork in the road, circled our way around and joined at every juncture.

Life always seems to lead back to him.

We’re six years old and making castles out of mud by the creek that runs through our backyards. It’s late July—that time of year when the grass begins to brown and the pavement cracks and the sunlight casts a nostalgic glow across the landscape. Soon we’ll be going school shopping for new backpacks and pencil cases, if we’re lucky and they’re on sale, but today we’ve dragged the garden hose all the way across the yard to fill in the creek that’s been dried out by the drought, wriggling our hands and bare feet into the creek bed as we imagine we’re sifting through sand on the beach.

You can’t put that there, Nathan says.

I stare at the pile of mud I’ve just slopped on top of a bare stretch of grass. Why not?

Cause that’s where the ramparts go.

I don’t tell him I don’t know what a rampart is or where it is or isn’t supposed to go. He speaks with such conviction that I automatically believe him, and I know from that moment on, I’ll never doubt a word he says. All because he knows what a rampart is at six years old.

Well, what about here? I move the glop of mud a little further left. His dog—a golden retriever named Lucky—sits up and sniffs at the mud, then rolls back on his side with a groan.

Nathan hesitates and scrunches up his face, then shrugs. Yeah, okay, he says and turns back to his tower.

In exactly one hour, a moving truck will pull up in front of the house next door, and a man with a booming voice and heavy accent will barrel out of the garage, gesturing wildly at his bare wrist and the few boxes that litter the driveway next to the family van. The commotion will cause my mother to glance out the kitchen window, where she’s been preparing a barely-edible ham and broccoli casserole for our new neighbors—a middle-aged couple from New Jersey with two teenage girls and one six-year-old boy named Nathan. She’ll notice the hose draped across the patio furniture and will follow it along, snaking its way through the grass, until she spies us under a pair of willow trees, digging a moat around our fortress with two teaspoons I snuck from the dishwasher when she wasn’t looking. Her eyes will grow wide at the sight of us—mud reaching past our elbows and caking our shorts—and she’ll slam open the back door and race across the yard, shouting for us to back away from the mud and, no, don’t we dare come near her. Her shouts will catch the attention of Nathan’s father, who’ll holler into the house until his mother marches across the yard, pauses to exchange a few pleasantries with my mother, then grabs him by a dry corner of his shirt sleeve and ushers him back home, an unhappy dog at their heels.

In the bath, I’ll pull clumps of mud from my long hair and watch with delight as they get caught in the drain. At bedtime, I’ll change into a fresh nightgown and whisper my daily prayer for a dog like his, and before I slide beneath the cool sheets, I’ll sneak a look out the window at our castle.

Six weeks later, on a wind-swept September morning, I’ll greet him at the end of our driveway. I’ll be wearing a brand-new Cinderella backpack. He’ll be carrying a Superman lunchbox. We’ll climb the steps of the bus and slide into the seat next to each other while our mothers stand side-by-side, their second mug of coffee in hand, and wave us off, but we won’t pay them any attention. He’s already busy explaining what a turret is.

That’s how I like to imagine our story beginning.

It isn’t anywhere close to the truth.

Chapter Four

NATHAN

My story doesn’t begin here. But if my sister has her way, it’ll end here—

I swear to God, Nathan. If I find one more cereal bowl in your room…

—right here in the middle of her kitchen, bludgeoned to death by dishware.

They’re empty threats that lead nowhere, that’s what they are, and she knows it. Her husband, Tim, knows it. Even my baby nephew knows it, judging by the spit-filled grin he has on his face. I cross my eyes and stick my tongue out at him before diving back into my Cap’n Crunch, milk spilling over the tip of the spoon and back into the Tupperware container.

My sister lowers her arms over the sink, successfully transplanting the half a dozen ceramic bowls where she thinks they rightfully belong.

I was gonna do it after school, I mumble, taking another bite, refusing to turn around and meet her death glare.

But she isn’t even listening. She’s on a full-blown tirade, a symphony of clanging bowls and tinging silverware marked by a crescendo of words as she loads the dishwasher, pointing out what we can all do to help out around here, now that she has another person to cook for, because it’s not enough that she has a husband and a toddler and a full-time job—oh, no. Now she has a little brother to look after, too, and it’s not like she hasn’t been doing that for most of her life, anyway.

I freeze.

She gasps.

Even my nephew stops slamming his spoon on his tray and stares at her.

Nate…

It’s cool, Jess.

Nathan…

It’s fine, just forget it.

Across the table, Tim glances between the two of us before standing and taking his proper cereal bowl to the sink. In the window’s reflection, I can see him kiss her temple, see the sag of her shoulders as she leans into him.

She didn’t mean it. I know she didn’t. My sister’s the kind of person who says shit without thinking. Still, the words stab at something inside of me, twist around in my gut for a while, and I shovel another spoonful of cereal into my mouth and try not to let it get to me.

I’ll get Jasper cleaned up for daycare, Tim says. A second later, he’s lifting a giggling one-year-old out of his high-chair. Come on, buddy. Let’s get rid of that stinky you’ve got going on.

Jess slides into Tim’s empty seat across from me. I can feel her stare even without looking at her, can feel the waiting, the something-coming.

She wants to talk.

I let go of my spoon, watch it dip against the side of the bowl before disappearing into the remaining milk. That’s always the best part—the leftover milk. Let the cereal get soggy enough and some of the sugar residue will dissolve, creating a kind of warm milkshake. It really is the best part.

But not today.

Sorry about the dishes, I begin at the same time she says, I shouldn’t have said that.

She opens her mouth to speak again, closes it, then takes a deep breath. It’s an adjustment, you know? There’s so much going on with work and then coming home to Jasper and Tim, and it’s just been a rough few months. But I’m glad you’re here.

I can always stay with Jamie.

Jamie… Her voice trails off, and she waves her hand dismissively. She has her own stuff going on. And besides, she smiles, and I realize how much she looks like Mom when she does, I like having my baby brother around. Helps with the babysitting.

I snort. Yeah. Right.

She taps her nails on the table, picks an apple out of the fruit bowl in the center, studies it for bruising, then places it back just as quickly.

You want to ask if I’m ever going back. My sister may be ten years older than me, but I can still read her like a book.

Are you?

I scoot back in my chair, scratching the legs against the linoleum, and grab the Tupperware bowl. No.

Nathan—

I can’t live there, Jess. I—

I’m cut short by Jasper running back into the kitchen, heading straight for Jess’s lap.

Just as well. I don’t want to talk about this, anyway.

She lifts him high into the air— There’s my baby boy!—and grabs the cereal box in her other hand, kissing Tim on the cheek as she passes him in the doorway. The choreography is flawless.

The married life suits my oldest sister, but even though she has the cool husband and the cutest kid ever and the old rowhome across the river on the other side of town from where we grew up, sometimes I’ll catch her looking around her house—at everything she’s created for herself—with a wistful smile on her face. As soon as she sees me watching her, she’ll shake it away with a roll of her eyes and a comment about how the house still needs so much work done to it, like she wants to pretend family life and home renovations isn’t everything she’s always wanted.

I don’t know, maybe it’s easier for her that way. Maybe it lets her cope with the guilt of leaving home at eighteen and never looking back. Maybe that’s why she’s always getting on me about having done the same—not for the fact that I’m encroaching on her dream life, but because I’m not willing to wait in hell for another year.

I’ll see you guys later. I tousle Jasper’s hair and head for the front door, grabbing my backpack from a bench in the hallway and slinging it over my shoulder.

Wait, you don’t have your truck, Jess hollers after me.

I’m picking it up after school.

So, I’ll drive you.

I’m taking the bus.

I’ll drive you, she says again.

But—

Behind my sister, Tim is shaking his head, and I sigh and drop my bag. Sure, Jess. You can drive me.

She grins and stretches her arms out for her son, who gleefully waddles into them again. Good. Now come here, my little man!

I step outside to wait on the porch just as the school bus ambles by. So much for that option.

You have everything? she asks, pulling the door shut behind her.

I pat my bag in response and follow her down the walk to the sedan that’s parked along the curb, folding